


Songs in the Solemn Dark

by hangsondoong



Series: Terrifying Tolkien [1]
Category: The Lord of the Rings (Movies), The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Dreams and Nightmares, Dreams vs. Reality, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fellowship of the Ring, Grief/Mourning, Horror, Lothlórien, M/M, Night Terrors, Psychological Horror, Terrifying Tolkien Week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-02
Updated: 2015-08-02
Packaged: 2018-04-12 13:16:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4480661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hangsondoong/pseuds/hangsondoong
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Legolas talks in his sleep as the Fellowship of the Ring spend their first night in Lothlórien after Gandalf’s fall from the Bridge of Khazad-dûm. The young elven prince’s grief and fear is affecting his dreams…</i>
</p><p>Written for the Day 1 writing prompt for #TerrifyingTolkienWeek, which is “somniloquy,” referring to the act of talking in one’s sleep. General warning for horror.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Songs in the Solemn Dark

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: This fic contains major character death (in a dream sequence), dead bodies and some other gore and violence, blood mention, breathing trouble mention, mild body horror in animals, and dream sequences which blur the line between reality and dream, and it is not recommended for readers with dissociative disorder or readers who struggle with reality perception. 
> 
> Translations of the Sindarin text are in hovertext!

Night had finally come to Lothlórien. 

Having settled the rest of the Fellowship into their beds — the four hobbits wrapped around each other beneath a pile of furs, Gimli resting on his back within the shelter, and Boromir shifting restlessly upon his pallet — Aragorn returned the blankets he was to share with Legolas. The young elf was already at rest, his eyes open and glassy, his limbs loose and still. Aragorn huffed as he lowered his aching bones onto the blankets, and prepared for sleep. 

Curled on the ranger’s right side, Legolas lay in the dark, his high, sweet voice muttering listlessly in the elven tongue. “In eryd bruin, i amar mith,” the young elf mumbled. 

Aragorn realized with a start that these were the words of Gimli’s song, the one which the dwarf had sung to the Fellowship in the dark of Moria. Old hills and a grey world… Aragorn shivered. He remembered the bruised stones of the watch-tower of Amon Sûl, leaning over him in the dark, echoing with the shrieks of the Nazgûl, and the other dark ruins of once-grand Gondor he had seen on his travels. The world was falling apart faster than Aragorn could fix it. 

Aragorn knew that Moria had once also been beautiful, glowing with lights and busy with dwarves, but he could see only the black chasm, burned into his eyelids as from the moment he saw the wizard fall. 

The elf beside Aragorn continued to speak in his sleep, saying, “i naur e-hindan ring sui lith.”

Aragorn shivered. Cold ashes and dying fires spoke of unpleasant dreams for the both of them. He tried to shut out Legolas’s words and settled on the edge of their blanket pile, far from the dreaming elf. Tired as he was, the ranger soon drifted off. 

But when Aragorn awoke in the grey-green minutes just past sunrise, Legolas was gone. 

– – –

Legolas felt as though he had simply closed his eyes and at once found himself lost in the fearful memories of the last few days, wandering in the dark. The dwarf’s song echoed in his head, a great darkness that he could not see through or peer around. 

Then the deep dark resolved into huge pillars of stone, reaching up around Legolas like a mockery of the mallorn trees of Lothlórien. The grand black decaying hall of Moria…

But this place could not be called Moria, Legolas realized; this was no dark pit… 

Instead, the great pillared hall was glowing with light — golden candlelight, soft silver moonlight reflecting off soft cloth and vast mirrors, rich copper glowing from embers set in lamps among the columns. Dwarves bustled about, holding metals and jewels and rich foods and soft furs. 

Legolas was dizzied by the life around him, so warm and thriving. He stood just above the tallest in the crowd, looking out at the tents and stalls and hearths and paths set up all around the hall, as far as the elf’s eyes could see. 

Then Legolas spied another tall figure among the dwarven crowd. A regal-looking male elf with dark hair leaned casually against a pillar, speaking happily with a dark dwarven woman. Both of them wore smiths’ leather guards over their clothes and they smiled as they spoke, even as their gestures grew more rapid in argument. The elf said something which Legolas could not hear above the noise of the market, but the dwarf smith laughed loudly, leaning into her elven companion. Legolas looked at this and wondered, thinking perhaps the two looked familiar. He thought back to the Doors of Durin, the west-gate of Moria, traced in moonlight in the night, inscribed with the name of an elf-smith – Celebrimbor – and a dwarf-smith – Narvi – side by side. 

Suddenly, the elven smith stiffened. Another tall figure had walked up to the pair, fair and golden and masculine, draped in rich red robes. The new man ignored the dwarven woman, speaking only to the elf. But the elf turned away, distrust in the lines of his body. Legolas too felt the wrongness of the being in red and gold. He struggled through the crowd, reaching out as if to shout a warning. 

But the world was speeding up, the market whirling faster and faster and the elf and the dwarf and the red-golden monster fading into night as Legolas realized he was shouting, “Narvi! Cele–”

The dark dwarven woman glanced toward Legolas, but she did not see him before all spun into ashen darkness, and Legolas’s tongue twisted in his mouth, no longer his to control.

– – –

Legolas woke up with more words curled in his mouth; the thick, dark sounds of “i dhúath dortha si, mi tham,” felt like a fog clogging his throat, flowing into his lungs, the darkness alive and slick with blood. He choked on the words, shivering and breathing heavily. 

When his breath at last came normally, Legolas looked around. The lights of Lothlórien had finally been put out, and the forest floor was shaded in grays and blacks, nothing visible but the shapes of tall trees stretching upward into the gloom. 

Legolas realized that he was no longer among the Fellowship. 

Instead, he lay at the feet of a great mallorn, in the deep forest. As his eyes adjusted to the dark, he saw that a guard’s post was perched high above him, the guard looking down upon Legolas with concern in his eyes. As the guard climbed down towards him, Legolas realized it was Haldir. 

The elven captain leapt down to the ground from the top of the last flight of hand-holds, and strode to where Legolas stood shaking on his feet. 

“My lord, what is wrong?” Haldir asked, his voice quiet and comforting.

But Legolas found he could not speak. He shook his head, and tried to leave, heading back in what he hoped was the direction of Caras Galadhon. 

Haldir followed him, asking worriedly, “Legolas, are you all right?” 

But now Legolas was moving faster, and a strange fog seemed to close around him. In the clouded forest, he could no longer see the great trees around him or the ground beneath his feet. Struggling forward, Legolas felt his foot catch on some uneven ground or tree root, and he stumbled and fell, and fell …

– – –

When Legolas opened his eyes, he was back in the true dark. He felt cold stone beneath his hands, but could see nothing. He reached out blindly, but held still when he heard skittering movement around him. In the dark, he waited. 

Eventually, Legolas saw a light moving towards him from far away on the other side of the cavernous hall. He could see the edges of the great pillars around him, trimmed in a pale light. Small creatures rushed into the shadows, as the light wandered closer. Legolas glanced at the creatures and recoiled at what he saw — they were in form like cats, small and sleek and black, but where a face would be was only a single, giant, golden eye, rent in two by the dark slit of a pupil. 

One of the eye-beasts looked right at Legolas, blinking its great yellow orb open and shut quickly before letting out a harsh screech and scattering into the shadows behind its fellows. 

“Legolas.” The voice came from right behind him, high and hollow and sad. 

Legolas spun around, his heart beating rapidly in his chest. 

Arwen stood there, draped head to toe in black robes. Her face was deathly pale, cheeks gaunt and sharp. “Legolas, my brother,” she said. “We have failed. We must fall at his feet and beg for the gift.” 

Confused, Legolas asked, “Arwen? What are we doing here? Where is Aragorn? The Fellowship?”

Arwen’s head was bowed. “Do you not see?” her voice cracked with pain. “They are here. They never left.” Her hands gestured around them, and the ghostly light around her grew. 

As the light spilled into the hall around them, Legolas cried out in horror. 

They were surrounded by bodies, many of them skeletons unrecognizable and crumbling into dust. But others — he could make out the rich red cloak of the man of Gondor, the body within it run through with three black arrows and decayed beyond all other recognition. 

Beside him, four small bodies were laid out on the stone, three of them fallen in front of the other. The last wore the remains of a mithril shirt, its rings pulled apart and scavenged. More shadow-beasts crawled over the remains, picking at clothes and mail and flesh with their sharp white claws. 

Legolas turned around, searching frantically in the dark. Arwen stepped back, and then, at her feet, lay Aragorn, cold and pale and rent with many wounds. 

“Aragorn!” Legolas screamed without thought, and rushed to the man’s side. But the ranger would not move. Unlike the bodies of Boromir and the hobbits, Aragorn appeared almost alive, but no breath left his lips or stirred his breast. When Legolas knelt and clasped his hand, it was cold as death. 

“Come, Legolas.” Arwen’s voice was cold and commanding in his ear. 

Legolas looked up at her. “How did this happen?” he whispered. 

“We failed. Evil was allowed to endure.” Arwen’s light flickered, as though Elrond’s words were spoken through her very spirit, and the likeness of Elrond’s face shown through his daughter’s. The lines of her face became severe and frightening, and Legolas fell back in fear. 

“There must be some way…”

Arwen settled into her normal features, though her grey eyes still stared through Legolas as though she could not see him. “No, Legolas,” she said more softly, looking at Aragon’s face. “It is over. Aragorn is gone and Gimli is almost so. The Fellowship is no more. We must go to him, Legolas, we must go to the Dark Lord and beg for the gift, so that we may leave this place. We must beg for death.”

Legolas gasped. “We cannot— no, Arwen, we must not give up! You speak of Gimli, where is he? We must find him!” 

Arwen shook her head sadly. “He is nearly gone,” she said, pointing past Legolas into the shadows. 

Legolas rushed toward where her hand pointed, seeing the familiar shape of the Chamber of Mazarbul, lit by one thin beam of light. He sprinted through the door, toward the white tomb of Balin, placed carefully beneath the beam, but he stopped short, unable to accept what he saw. 

The white stone of the tomb was shattered, sharp shards of marble fallen inward into darkness and decay. In the ruins lay Gimli, gasping for breath. The marble fragments had torn his flesh and his fall upon the tomb had broken many bones. Legolas ran to him, frantic. “Gimli!” he cried.

Legolas grasped at the dwarf’s one good hand, praying for Gimli to hold on. The elf could feel Gimli’s strong fingers clutching weakly at his own. The dwarf’s eyes open, but he seemed unable to see Legolas, and he coughed, weakly. There was blood on his lips. 

“Gimli, stay with me! Do not go,” Legolas begged. 

But the dwarf’s grip was weakening further. Within moments his hand slipped from Legolas’s, and his eyes clouded over.

– – –

Again, Legolas awoke with words in his throat, this time a frantic cry of “Gimli, Gimli, no! Do not go! Gimli, do not leave me.”

But now he heard a deep voice speaking to him in return. “Legolas? What is it lad?”

The mist sifted away from Legolas’s eyes, and he saw Gimli kneeling beside him, illuminated by the soft light of dawn. Legolas fell back upon the moss with a great breath. “Gimli,” he whispered. “You are here.”

“Aye, I am here master Elf,” Gimli replied, gruff but quiet, leaning closer to Legolas. “What troubles you? I am not going anywhere.” 

Legolas realized that he lay not far from the place set aside for the Fellowship. In the night he had made his way toward the tent-shelter where Gimli had been sleeping, but in his trance, he had not walked straight but had wandered nearly to the stream. He lay in a bed of moss, overlooking the silver waters which shown in the pale light of the rising sun. 

Legolas looked back at Gimli. The dwarf’s brow was furrowed in concern. Legolas could not look into his eyes; instead he whispered, “Come here.”

He pulled Gimli down to lie beside him, and gathered the dwarf into his arms, hiding the tears that threatened to spill down his cheeks by pressing his face against Gimli’s shoulder. 

Legolas breathed heavily, the air full of dwarven warmth and smoke and spice calming his racing heart. 

But as Legolas lay back against the moss, his breath caught in his throat. The sunlight was not growing but dimming, the forest once more going dark and cold, and Gimli beside him vanished, no more than smoke.

– – –

Now, Legolas was in a hall of statues draped with black, all of them made of smooth jet stone run through with mithril. He could see on his left Celebrimbor’s tall form, and Narvi’s strong, small figure as he had seen the two of them in Khazad-dûm.

In front of Legolas stood a line of eight: the Fellowship lined up in death as in life, but for one. Gandalf, lined and weary; Aragorn, stony and sad; Boromir, concerned and doubtful; each of the hobbits, fearful and unarmed; and Gimli, looking into the darkness as though lost or blind. There was no spot for Legolas. 

Each direction Legolas turned he saw yet more statues, mortals both known and unknown, elves of his youth, elves of his family killed in the great wars, the dead and the gone and the lost…

At last Legolas dropped to his knees and wept. He felt a hand on his shoulder, but could summon no fear of who stood behind him. 

“All may yet be lost,” a voice – Galadriel’s – spoke into the darkness of the statue hall. “You ought not to hold back comfort when all may disappear so quickly.” 

Legolas looked up at her. She was gazing sadly at the statue of Celebrian, her daughter, and at Celebrimbor’s, which stood not far from it. 

“We too easily are left behind, you and I, prince of the woodland realm,” she continued. 

Legolas shuddered, trying to halt his tears. He said, “But what can be done? All the world is breaking.”

Galadriel sank down to her knees beside him, great sadness and peace both together in her eyes. “Live,” she said simply, and kissed his forehead.

– – –

With a jolt, Legolas awoke once more. There was not yet much light in the sky, just before dawn. Aragorn lay beside him beneath the heavy blankets, deeply asleep. Legolas himself had not moved since his rest began many hours ago. 

Legolas tried to calm his breathing and his heart. He knew now that he was truly awake, for though he often struggled to find the edges of his dreams, the world felt real again, in the way that nothing had since the previous night, when he had burrowed down in the blankets, listening to the end of the lament for Gandalf. This was real, the memories of Celebrimbor and Narvi and the Dark Lord and Arwen and the shadow eye-beasts and Gimli – Gimli – were not. The lingering fear left from his dreams began to ebb away, but this left Legolas feeling slightly empty and cold, and very alone. 

It was just at that moment when a comforting smell came to the young elf. Legolas wandered down to the center of their campsite, following this scent of woodsmoke and sap. He found that Gimli had made a fire, the embers crackling quietly in the dusky morning. 

Legolas gazed at the dwarf sitting peacefully, tending to the coals. The elf thought of the beauty of the Dwarrowdelf in its first days, the solemn dignity of Khazad-dûm draped in black, the comforting warmth of Gimli in his arms, whole and well. It had all just been a series of dreams and visions, all of it false, but….

Legolas stepped up to the place where the dwarf sat, making his foot-falls heavy so that Gimli would hear him coming and not be alarmed. Gimli looked up at him, and Legolas felt as though a great weight pressed upon his chest. But at the same time, the elf was hopeful. 

“Master Gimli, would you be willing to accompany me? I find I am in need of your comfort.” 

Gimli smiled, dimples peeking out from his deep red beard. He stood up, face lit from below by the coals, but warm and comforting for all that. “Happily,” he said, and took Legolas’s hand. 

And so it was that _after the first night Legolas did not sleep with the other companions, though he returned to eat and talk with them. Often he took Gimli with him when he went abroad in the land, and the others wondered at this change._

**Author's Note:**

> The last italicized passage is a direct quote from The Fellowship of the Ring. 
> 
> The beautiful Sindarin translation of the Song of Durin was found [here](http://www.sindanoorie.net/cmp/Durin.html).
> 
> And the wonderful female Narvi comes to you thanks to the brilliant [determamfidd](http://determamfidd.tumblr.com/), and her gorgeous fic [Sansûkh](http://archiveofourown.org/works/855528/chapters/1637607)!
> 
> Well that was fun to write! Apologies to Legolas, though – the things I put him through...


End file.
